Has Digital Marketing Changed Over the Years?

There is no denying the digital marketing industry has changed dramatically over the years.

For many marketers however, dramatic change would seem like an understatement.

What was considered the in thing a few years back might already be outdated by now.

For instance, social media giant Instagram was not even around 5 years ago.

With changes occurring at a very rapid pace, entrepreneurs need to adapt ways to keep up or they will be left behind.

Thankfully, marketers nowadays already have the opportunity to invest in the help and guidance of a trusted digital marketing agency to help them keep up and stay relevant.

For the uninitiated, below are just some of the many key changes the digital marketing industry has gone through over the years:

SEO

Back in the mid-90s, optimizing sites for the search engines became widely popular.

By 2004, search engine optimization (SEO) has been acknowledged as a vital marketing tool and was being used on a global scale already.

However, during its early days, keyword stuffing, article submissions, and link spamming were recommended by people who obviously were still trying to find their way around back then.

Unfortunately, during those times, nobody was certain about SEO’s impact and usability and as a result, didn’t give it the credit and attention it deserves.

Fortunately, at present time, a reliable digital marketing agency can now easily give you an idea of the relevance and impact of SEO in your brand’s overall marketing efforts.

Marketing

For so many years, marketing techniques and tactics involved targeting prospects blindly and contacting them randomly, all in the hopes of maybe reaching someone who might be interested in the products or services being offered.

Putting it another way, communication with prospective clients back then has been far from sophisticated and seamless.

Fortunately, with the introduction of way better statistics, content, targeting, resources, and new ways of doing things, digital marketing came into play.

Today, digital marketing entails having better understanding of the customer so appealing to their interests and needs using tailored content and information becomes relatively easier.

Attention nowadays can be earned through transparency, word-of-mouth branding, conversations, and creation and publishing of high quality content, among others.

Google

Years ago, search engines like Lycos, WebCrawler, AltaVista, Yahoo! and InfoSeek has made significant strides in the digital search evolution.

However, there’s no denying the golden years of search did not occur until Google was launched in 1998.

With the introduction of the world’s most popular search engine, alongside the introduction of powerful tools like AdWords (2000) and content targeting (2003), Google dramatically changed how things are done online.

In 2004, advanced ranking algorithms were introduced by search engines, prompting the online browsing experience to become even more intimate.

These changes had dramatic impact on businesses and brands.

The capability to come up with marketing strategies based on search patterns paved to new ways of communicating and selling.

Nowadays, a Googlebot can index and crawl trillions of pages and allow the most relevant data to be instantly available via traditional or voice search.

This change has given brand the power to reach just about anyone, at any place and at any time.

Digital PR

The numerous online changes introduced has also significantly changed the way PR agencies do business.

Years prior, PR agencies use media tours to secure a client’s exposure on print, TV, or radio and to conduct press meetings.

Also, reports and questionnaires were sent out to gather contact information and to check if a particular client will be featured.

At present, a digital PR specialist can already easily check the basics about a contact before making a pitch.

With SEO research and trends, digital PRs can now back up their next moves with data resulting to better targeting and more quantifiable results.